


Guessing Game

by Alistra (ALeaseInWonderland)



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Banter, Challenge Response, Comedy, Domestic Avengers, F/M, Humor, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Prompt Fill, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29844972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALeaseInWonderland/pseuds/Alistra
Summary: A tabloid has made a surprising discovery. It leads to more questions.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 11
Kudos: 22
Collections: Poly Armory Tropes and AUs





	Guessing Game

**Author's Note:**

> For the Poly Armory discord Tropes and AUs Challenge. My randomly assigned keywords were De-aging and Celebrities. This is.... _kind of_ that. 
> 
> Many, many thanks to everybody at the Poly Discord, most of all Cruciatus Foreplay, Harishe and of course CloudAtlas.

"Avengers! Assemble!" Tony's voice echoes through the communal kitchen of Avengers Towers to a resounding chorus of unimpressed silence. 

"Since you haven't slept in- JARVIS?" 

"Twenty-seven hours and nineteen minutes, Captain Rogers."

"Thank you, JARVIS. Since you haven't slept in more than a day and are holding a glossy magazine, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume it's not that urgent a situation, Tony," Steve replies evenly, only briefly glancing up from the sketchpad on his knee.

While Tony is still huffing, Steve returns to capturing the lines of concentration on Clint's forehead as he guides a video game character through a maze. Curved around Clint's back, and making him perch on the very edge as a result, Natasha is stretched along the entire length of the couch, her head in Bucky's lap. They are so wrapped up in each other, it's difficult to capture in clear lines, but something of the serenity of the trio makes Steve both melancholic and eager to do it justice. 

"Why is nobody paying attention to your benevolent team leader?" Tony asks archly as he corrects course towards the coffee pot. 

"We are," Bucky says without looking up from Clint's game, "and he said you're being dramatic again, didn't you Steve?"

"JARVIS, are there any studies that have documented a correlation between long exposure to subzero temperatures and a terrible sense of humour?"

"Not that I am aware, Sir, but I can run more in-depth research if required," the AI replies as solemnly as ever.

Tony huffs dismissively. Coffee in hand, his unhurried crossing in front of the TV has both Clint and Bucky moaning and craning their necks to keep up with the game. Tony perches on the armrest of Steve's chair and peers down at the drawing. 

"That's actually not half bad, Cap," he says, lowering his voice as if admitting he likes it is harming his reputation as a grouchy bastard. 

"Thanks," Steve says, running the tip of his pencil over the curve of Bucky's concentrated frown. 

"Anyway, before this quite unsurprising and casual display of insubordination, I was about to point out that-" Tony turns the magazine around to check its name again "- _The Trumpet_ 's stellar investigative journalism has uncovered some unexpected truths up that were just shocking."

"Am I pregnant with alien twins again?" Clint asks, unconcerned and without taking his eyes off the screen.

"That was a good one," Bucky nods appreciatively. "I quite liked the photoshop of Kate glaring disapprovingly at your extended belly."

"That wasn't photoshop. They snapped us as we left two-for-one night at Antonio's Pizza."

Steve erases half of Bucky's face and re-sketches it with quick lines, capturing the laugh lighting up his face. 

"It's not about alien babies this time," Tony says, goatee twitching as he tries to hold on to his poker face.  
"Who did I propose to this week then?" Steve asks, shading the curve of Natasha's shoulder, "I still get occasional cards lamenting our cancelled wedding, you know." 

"While I still don't understand why _I_ was made out to be the bad guy in this scenario, it's not about you either," Tony mutters, flipping pages to reach the article in question.

"You held a press conference where you called off our imaginary wedding because - and this is a direct quote - _Steve won't wear white_." While the entire thing was amazingly stupid and silly, being accused of such ridiculous behaviour had somehow still stung.

"In fairness, Stevie, that would've have been inappropriate, I mean we both know-" Bucky interjects, breaking off with a grin at Steve's arctic glare.

"Thank you for your support, Buck, it means the world to me," he deadpans to a chorus of chuckles. 

"Come on, Tony, spill your big secret so we can all move on," Natasha yawns, swatting in Bucky's vague direction as he tickles her nose with a strand of her own hair.

"Thank you, Ms Romanoff," Tony says, tipping an imaginary hat at her. "As I was saying: Startling revelations. And this time, this rag even got things right. JARVIS has confirmed their findings."

This at last draws everybody's attention. Clint, who's conveniently just died in-game, lowers the controller. "Put us out of our misery, Tony, come on."

"Our favourite former Russian assassin lied on critical official documents."

"What?" Clint asks Natasha, who's begun to extricate herself from both him and Bucky to sit at the far end of the couch.

"I can explain" she says.

"What? Not her, _him_!" interjects Tony, pointing a finger at Bucky. "He lied on his enlistment papers."

" _He's_ your favourite former Russian assassin?" Clint asks, incredulous, while Natasha raises a questioning, Bucky a smug eyebrow at Tony. "To start with, he's not even all that Russian!"

If Steve's basic knowledge of the Slavic language doesn't fail him, Bucky mutters " _I can be if you want me to_ " waggling his eyebrows at Clint. Natasha smirks.

"I- That's beside the point. The point being that Bucko here made himself older to join the army!" Tony flusters.

"Is that true?" Steve's quiet voice cuts through the beginning argument like steel.

All amusement drains from Bucky's face as he turns to his friend. "Steve, come on. That was literally almost a century ago. You can't be upset-"

"I think I can. Do you have any idea-" for an overwhelming moment, Steve tries to reimagine a world in which Bucky never went to war, never fell off that train, was never captured. He tries to imagine a world where Bucky stayed home; safe and sound and-

"Can we backtrack to the moment where Nat was fully prepared to explain herself lying on official documentation?" Clint cuts through the intense silence and all eyes gratefully turn on the woman in question. 

"It was a reflexive answer more than anything. I've lied about a lot of things in my life," she says easily, shrugging as she gets up to make herself some tea. 

"How did you manage to lie about your age, Buck? I'm pretty sure I know old you are, so that should be impossible," Steve insists.

"I don't know, Steve, what do the tabloids think?" Bucky passes the ball back to Tony, who has found the article and quotes:

" _The dark Avenger with the smouldering look and murderous thighs added a few years to his age to be able to join the Boyscouts of America. While these days, one may join the ranks of juvenile patriots as early as 10 years of age, up until 1949, the age of admission was 12 - a fact that didn't stop determined 9-year-old 'Bucky' Barnes..._ "

"A _boyscout_?" Natasha repeats in a voice that might have passed for a squee from any other woman.

" _Murderous thighs_?" says Steve.

"Please tell me they unearthed a picture," Clint begs, biting his lip and holding up besechingly crossed fingers on both hands. 

"They have indeed! JARVIS?" Tony announces gleefully, making a swiping motion from the magazine to the tv screen. JARVIS replaces the looped replay of Clint's game character's demise with a blurry, sepia-toned picture of a garnison of uniformly dressed children in matching short trousers and neckerchiefs. One kid in the first row, a full head shorter than his peers, is holding a slate that has some hardly legible chalk writing on it. Even with this low quality, his proudly grinning toothgap is visible.

Steve's heart clenches painfully with nostalgia as a chorus of _aww_ s resounds and Bucky pushes Clint onto the floor when he attempts to pinch his cheek. 

"You were adorable!" Natasha announces gleefully, abandoning all tea-related activities and Bucky groans. 

"How did I not know about this?" Steve asks.

"It was before we even moved to New York. We hadn't met yet!" Bucky says, peering at the image of himself from between his fingers while Tony instructs JARVIS to run several image enhancing protocols.

"Wait a second. Does that mean-" quickly, Steve calculates in his head, "That would mean you skipped ages ten and eleven and just pretended that was your real age for the rest of your life."

"I guess so," Bucky says, watching as his childhood photograph begins to resemble Alfred E. Neuman.

"Bucky! That means you're turning exactly 100 this March!" Steve exclaims, startled as Tony starts clapping besides him. 

"Now he gets it. Good job Rogers, somebody give that man a WHO-approved equivalent of a cigar!"

"A party!" Clint cries, clutching his hands together with mischievous joy.

"No," says Bucky, shaking his head forbiddingly, "absolutely no party."

"A reason to get all dressed up," Natasha points out from the kitchenette and Steve sees both Clint and Bucky exchange very obvious glances.

"Well..." the latter concedes after a beat, "I suppose it isn't every day that one gains triple digits."

"Nevermind the boyscouts, I can't quite get over the fact you never even told _me_ ," Steve mutters, unable to let it go. 

Bucky gives him a stricken look, snapping his mouth shut without finding any suitable words. 

"Oh come on, Cap," Clint comes to his partner's defence, finally venturing back onto the couch after being so roughly shoved off it earlier. "Everybody lies on official records at some point in their lives, right?" he looks around the room for support, "right?"

"When I was 15 and had just started at MIT, it's possible I made a false ID," Tony reminisces, a wistful expression giving way to a vaguely sheepish expression. "Never really had a chance to try it out. With this last name, delicate complexion and trustfund, nobody refused me entry or alcohol anyway."

"That explains so much about your lovable personality," Natasha smiles sweetly, and Steve coughs to hide his laugh.

"When did you lie?" he asks Clint, effectively cutting off Tony who's already drawn breath to begin a tirade defending the virtues of his character.

"Might have fibbed here and there when I joined the Army. Same thing in a way, only I joined the 'big boy scouts'," Clint says without any visible remorse, banishing Bucky's sepia cheer from the screen to return to his game. "Even if it's what they eventually tried to kick me out for. Luckily SHIELD snapped me up before it got really tricky."

"What about you, Natasha?" Steve asks, "you were quick to defend yourself just then. What's the story?"

"Oh no, I don't think we need to be talking about that," she refuses.

Steve watches with fascination as she manages to melt into the sparce, indented spaces left between her partners on the couch, inexplicably displaying both the grace and air of inevitability of a cat. 

"Was it about your age?" Tony asks, already running algorithms on a holographic projection that make Steve's eyes water with their blurred blue speed.

"Nationality?" Bucky wonders.

"Did you make yourself heiress to the Tsardom of Muscovy?" Steve suggests, immediately interrupted by Clint who shouts: "Did you hide that you _are_ the heiress to the Tsardom of Muscovy?"

Natasha just laughs at their growing excitement, giving up on her comfortable sprawl to sit up, Bucky's arm comfortably around her shoulder. 

"You'll tell me when we're alone, won't you sweetheart?" he says against her ear, not quite a whisper but quietly enough to be intimate.

"No, me, you'll tell me, right Nat?" Clint butts in, crowding them both to plaster himself to her other side. "We've been friends the longest."

"But she likes me best," Bucky grins back, waggling his eyebrows.

"Is that a fact?" Clint smirks, leaning in.

"Everybody likes me best," Bucky says, leaning in as well, "you heard Tony."

"Keep me out of your pillowtalk, guys," Tony says without looking up from his calculations.

"No promises," Clint laughs, taking Bucky's jaw in one hand and planting a quick kiss on his mouth.

"I love both of you equally," Natasha assures them, looping an arm around each of their necks. The addition of "especially when you do that" too quiet for anyone without enhanced senses to pick up.

It's petty to interrupt them, Steve knows it, but the green-eyed monster of jealousy is a petty creature and also the only steady partner Steve's had for long years now. 

"Did you claim to be proficient in languages that don't even exist?" Steve says, eyes back on his drawing, where the Bucky of a few minutes ago is still laughing over Clint's joke, Natasha's hair spilling over his lap.

Natasha makes a short burst of weird noises.

"Gesundheit," Tony says, then hesitates and raises both eyebrows, "did you just say 'I didn't' in Klingon?"

"Of course you would know Klingon," Clint tells Tony, rolling his eyes, but appearing secretly impressed.

"As a reward for recognizing that," Natasha says, "I'll tell it to you and you alone, Tony. If you promise you'll keep the secret." 

At his nod, she disentangles herself from her two partners and walks over, pointing at Steve sternly as she passes. "Fingers in your super ears, Cap."

Obligingly, Steve plugs his ears and starts humming the penetratingly catchy title melody of Clint's video game that's been annoying him all day. From the corner of his eye, he sees Clint laughing in his direction.

Natasha cups both palms around Tony's ear and leans in to whisper. 

Bucky, Clint, and Steve too, all stare with rapt attention at Tony's face. 

His expression of unbridled curiosity briefly morphs into confusion, then into the deep satisfaction that Steve associates with Tony solving a particularly vexing equation. As Natasha pulls back with a sphinx-like smile, Tony's face falls and Steve quickly releases his ears.

"That can't be true," Tony is saying.

"I will swear on whatever you choose that it is," Natasha replies.

"But... Nobody is ever going to believe me if I tell them!" he wails.

"That shouldn't be a problem, since you did just promise you'll never tell a soul," she reminds him sweetly.

"Yes, but... this is insane! Did anybody ever-?"

Natasha holds up a forbidding finger and Tony falls silent. 

"Wow," he whispers to himself again a minute later, absently flicking the holographic displays he's been using back into non-existence.

"That's it," Clint exclaims, jumping up and catching Natasha around the waist and throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She makes a decidedly unsophisticated squeaking noise, holding on to his belt loops.

"Clint, what the hell!" her laughter robs the complaint of all credibility.

As he effortlessly carries her from the room, Bucky is quick to follow.  
"Ve have vays of making you talk!" he mock-threatens, closing the door behind them with a theatrical flourish.

Steve looks over at Tony, but he's not talking. 

With a resigned sigh, Steve gives up on finding out what Natasha's secret might be, flips to a fresh page in his sketch book and tries to at least capture Tony's mask of puzzled confusion. In the very corner, he lightly pencils the word 'Klingon?' to covertly look up later.

**Author's Note:**

> Steve needs a hug. I'm sorry, Steve. <333


End file.
